Zack Leonard has been the Head Varsity Sailing Coach at Yale since 2002. As
an undergraduate at Yale, Leonard was an All-American and served as the
captain of the sailing team. Leonard started his collegiate coaching career in
1987 when he led the US Coast Guard Academy varsity sailing team during a
leave of absence from Yale. From 1989 to 1992 he was Head Sailing Coach
at Brown University where the team won a Fowle Trophy. Leonard returned
to coach at Yale in the fall of 2000. In 2002 the team was promoted from
club to varsity status. During his tenure at Yale, Leonard has led the team to
14 ICSA National Championships and a total of 37 podium finishes at the
National Championships. The team has won the Fowle Trophy, emblematic of
the top performing sailing team in the combined National Championships 4
times. Most recently, in the spring of 2015, Leonard coached the Bulldogs to
wins at the Women’s, Team Racing, and Co-ed Dinghy National
championships. This is just the 2nd time any team has ever won all three
Spring Nationals, the last being in 1992. Since 2004 Yale has produced 84
All-American Sailors and 4 College Sailors of the year.

Yale student-athletes have also been successful in Olympic level competition.
Isabelle Kinsolving '02 represented the United States in the 2004 Athens
Olympics in the Women's 470 class, finishing 5th, while Stuart McNay '05
and Thomas Barrows '10 represented the United States and US Virgin Islands
at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Mcnay again represented the US at the London
Olympics as did Sarah Lihan ’10 in the women’s 470 class. In 2016 Mcnay,
Barrows and Joseph Morris ’12 will represent the US in the 470 and 49er
classes in Rio.

Leonard is a 4 time US Team Racing Champion (Hinman Trophy) and the UK
Team Racing Champion (Wilson Trophy). From 1991-1996 Leonard
campaigned for an Olympic berth in the Tornado Class, earning a top 10
finish at the world championship in 1996. He’s won US and Canadian
National Championships in the Olympic Tornado class and a US title in the
Vanguard 15. Outside college coaching, Leonard has served as the head
coach of the US International 420 team since 2001, a coach of the US
Olympic Sailing team at numerous world and Continental championships and
a coach for the US squad at the 1993 Goodwill Games. During 2011 Leonard
served as the coach of the Women's 470 Class for the US Olympic team.
Leonard was named the 2006 National Coach of the Year by the US Olympic
Committee and currently serves as a member of the US Olympic Sailing
Committee.